Cambridge Analytica, a political consultancy that worked for the Trump campaign and had come under attack for its use of personal Facebook data in other elections, announced on Wednesday it would cease operations and declare bankruptcy in the United States and United Kingdom.

The firm said it had lost clients because of revelations in March that it had improperly obtained the personal information of millions of Facebook users. “It is no longer viable to continue operating the business,” Cambridge Analytica said in a statement.

Cambridge Analytica defended its use of Facebook, saying it was “vilified for activities that are not only legal, but also widely accepted as a standard component of online advertising in both the political and commercial arenas.”

The decision by the firm comes as it continues to face potential investigations and sanctions from regulators around the world for charges…

Cambridge Analytica was born of as an American offshoot of London-based SCL Group, whose affiliates had worked in campaigns around the world, including Kenya, Nigeria and India. Initial funding for Cambridge Analytica came from Republican financier Robert Mercer, who invested at least $10 million in the company as it sought to help exclusively GOP candidates across a range of U.S. congressional and state legislative elections beginning in 2014. His daughter Rebekah Mercer was the company’s president for a time. Neither Mercer responded to requests for comment on Wednesday…

Even as it maintained its innocence, Cambridge Analytica acknowledged that the “siege of media coverage has driven away virtually all of the Company’s customers and suppliers.” SCL Elections, its parent, as well as Cambridge Analytica began insolvency proceedings in the UK, and said they would soon start bankruptcy proceedings in the United States.

Basically they are just doing the very same Erik Prince do when his war crime companies becomes infamous when their unlawful actions and war crimes reaches daylight.Changing the company's name, but running business as usual.

Cambridge Analytica defended its use of Facebook, saying it was “vilified for activities that are not only legal, but also widely accepted as a standard component of online advertising in both the political and commercial arenas.”

Even if that were true (I’m not familiar with campaign laws enough to know), that still doesn’t make it right. Justice and the law aren’t often the same thing.

Maybe Cole can report back from an event for the convicted not-quite-but-actually mass murderer running for senate. He’s a pistol.

Don Blankenship, a former coal operator and for a while a resident of a federal penitentiary in connection with a fatal mine explosion, is reportedly struggling in his out-of-the-blue, anti-Establishment campaign to become a U.S. senator from West Virginia. So he’s really losing any inhibitions he might have originally harbored in going after his critics, notably the man whose party caucus he would join if he wins, Mitch McConnell.

McConnell is reportedly helping to orchestrate a pretty powerful ad offensive against Blankenship. And so the extremely plainspoken candidate is responding with an unusually baroque insult, calling McConnell “Cocaine Mitch” in an ad posted on Facebook:

Iowa legislators just passed one of the most restrictive abortion bills in the U.S.

The state’s “heartbeat” bill, passed by the predominantly Republican legislature, would ban abortion when a fetal heartbeat can be detected — usually around six weeks, before most women know they’re pregnant.

@Elizabelle: @Gin & Tonic: The buildings by the water in that long slow twilight. Amazing. In the summer we’d drive out of town to watch the whole sunset. Then drive back, not that far, and the sun would rise before we made it home. Though I was once there in the winter, and it was just brutally raw where we stayed.

Reposting from the dead thread about women’s equality because I didn’t see it being addressed: SHS, though ostensibly a woman, is still a dick.

Anyone who listened to Terri Gross’s interview with Michelle Wolf yesterday knows that SHS was being dickish the entire evening. Prior to the televised segment, journalism awards were handed out. People stood up and applauded the winners; SHS pointedly did neither. There’s some context for the evening. SHS’s “simmering” wasn’t the result of Wolf’s remarks. Like Pence’s walking out of an earlier DC gathering, this was preplanned. I guarantee it.

It should never be referred to as Emerdata. The press should refer to it as “Emerdata (formerly CambridgeAnalytica)”, or when feeling feisty, “”Emerdata (formerly the infamous CambridgeAnalytica alleged to have engaged in …)”

The Trump administration has chosen to ignore an executive order that requires the White House to issue an annual report on the number of civilians and enemy fighters killed by American counterterrorism strikes.

The mandate for the report, which was due May 1, was established by former president Barack Obama in 2016 as part of a broader effort to lift the veil of secrecy surrounding drone operations in places such as Yemen, Somalia and Libya. The White House has not formally rescinded the Obama-era executive order but has chosen not to comply with some aspects of it.
[snip]
A separate requirement, imposed as part of last year’s defense budget, requires the Pentagon to submit to Congress by May 1 a list of all U.S. military operations that caused civilian deaths. The Pentagon plans to deliver the report to Congress by June 1, or one month behind schedule, a Pentagon spokesman said late Tuesday after the May 1 deadline had expired.

Former U.S. counterterrorism officials expressed surprise at the Trump administration’s failure to deliver either report on time. “It is pretty remarkable that they would simply ignore an executive order that remains on the books and also a statutory requirement passed by Congress,” said Joshua Geltzer, a visiting law professor at Georgetown University and former senior counterterrorism official in the Obama administration. “That is just bad governance.” Source

In announcing the latest legal maneuver against the EPA, Brown did something new: applying an insulting nickname to embattled EPA administrator Scott Pruitt, calling him “Outlaw Pruitt.” This ploy will inevitably lead to Brown’s being compared to the master of insults, Pruitt’s boss. But unlike some of Trump’s crude sobriquets for his enemies and critics, Brown’s has a clear embedded message: Pruitt is exceeding his statutory authority under the Clean Air Act to abruptly change regulations and standards, as the Sacramento Bee explains:…

Well done, Jerry Brown. :-)
May Mr Pruit’s sleep (continue to?) be disturbed by realistic nightmares, about a new dustbowl in Oklahoma, and much much worse.

Gov. David Ige today asked Donald Trump to declare a major disaster for Hawaii following last month’s flooding and landslides that destroyed — or caused major damage — to more than 115 of homes on Kauai and Oahu.

In all, 532 homes on Oahu and Kauai were “affected” by the storm from April 13-16, according to Hawaii Emergency Management Agency estimates released today. HI-EMA did not provide cost estimates for the amount of overall damage, but said that damage to public properties added up to more than $19.7 million. There are still no estimates for how many businesses were damaged or destroyed.

“This disaster is of such severity and magnitude that effective response is beyond the capabilities of the state and affected county governments. Federal assistance is necessary,” Ige said in a statement.

A damage assessment conducted between April 22 and April 27 found that 532 homes were affected by the flooding and landslides, HI-EMA said. Five of the structures are “second homes.”

Would anyone like to wager on the chances of Trump obliging the Democratic governor of a Democratic state that will never ever vote for him?

@Roger Moore: Yup, I’m crystal clear on that. My cynicism was because CA should be pounded into the ground and the shards thrown into a volcano. Rebranding, and having Mercers as board members means the evil just got rearranged.

Eighteen House Republicans have nominated Donald Trump for the 2019 Nobel peace prize.

In a letter spearheaded by the Indiana Republican Luke Messer and sent to the Norwegian Nobel committee, the lawmakers claim that Trump should “receive the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of his work to end the Korean War, denuclearize the Korean peninsula and bring peace to the region”.

Iowa’s Republican-controlled legislature has passed the most restrictive abortion ban in the United States, outlawing the procedure after a fetal heartbeat is detected, often at six weeks and before a woman realizes she is pregnant.

The senate voted 29-17 to pass the House of Representatives-approved bill, according to the legislature’s online voting tallies. The bill now goes to the Republican governor, Kim Reynolds, an abortion opponent, who has not said publicly whether she will sign it into law.

The legislation is aimed at triggering a challenge to Roe v Wade, the US supreme court’s 1973 landmark decision which established that women have a constitutional right to an abortion, activists on both sides of the issue said.

Shah Marai was one of nine journalists lost in a second blast that targeted those first at the scene.

Marai, a veteran photographer who had been working in his home country for 22 years, started at AFP as a driver. Those 22 years included 17 years of war, starting in 2001.

The father of six had just celebrated the birth of his first daughter, Khadija, 15 days before his death.

“He was a gentle being, always smiling, always in a good mood. He was a tall man full of thoughtfulness,” said Polka’s director of photography, Dimitri Beck, who met Marai in Afghanistan in the early 2000s. “He was a great team leader. Always calm and serene, very professional. He was a great photographer in a country where news photography was a new thing at that time. His loss is a great one for the Afghan press. This attack is representative of the state of freedom in general and press freedom in particular in Afghanistan.”

@TenguPhule: How to be tactful about this (probably can’t)–the Indiana primary is next Tuesday and Messer of one of three R’s running, all of whom are in a contest to see who can wrap their lips the tightest around you know who/what. Messer just jumped into the lead.

I early voted last Saturday. There are five D’s running for my district (Sen. Donnelly is not opposed); and for my County Council there were 8 running for 7 slots. I think those were the only real choices on the D side.

Republicans have been ignoring laws they don’t like for decades. If they followed the law Iran-Contra would not have been a thing, we would not have tortured prisoners 15 years ago, and ignoring the law is what Trump has done his whole life.

Huh, looks like after Cobb resigned to reduce risk of getting sanctioned or worse if he goes in direction Trump wants (if I am reading between the lines correctly) the WH has retroactively decided that he is a loser and was fired for generally sucking at everything. I think I’ve seen that before.

ETA: all three are gold plated assholes, not that this comes as any surprise to anyone. Joe Donnelly is nobody’s idea of a perfect Democratic senator, but nobody who would be is ever going to be elected as senator in this benighted state. Evan Bayh redux…

@efgoldman: Another reading between the lines of Cobb’s statements is that he decided to leave before he was only employable by mob bosses who were ready to smoke the local DA if things didn’t always go their way.

I just replied to two trumpov tweets, a first for me. Why did the small chance he could read it feel so good? In one I asked him if he is not reading the daily briefs, why are they still producing them?

@TenguPhule: I could write a letter to the committee nominating Baud for the fucking award. It would get the same consideration. Trump actually has a better chance. Odds are that the Norskis believe that he would wear pants. With Baud….?

Well fucking duh, ya think it might be?
I wonder if it’s because they had no fucking clue, because who issued the executive order, no one in the WH knows how to make it happen, no one in the WH knows who is supposed to know who knows how to make it happen, etc, etc.

I want to take a moment and say how sad I am about the C-130 crash this afternoon, just after takeoff from Savannah. Owned by the Puerto Rico National Guard; possibly 9 on board. Somehow even sadder: it was on its final scheduled military flight. Was on its way to somewhere in Arizona, where it was to be decommissioned. Had been used for weather reconnaissance over the years; also a lot of work with transport and relief after the hurricane.

As if Puerto Ricans are not struggling enough this year, this news is so sad. Prayers for the families and communities.

@MomSense: I just searched on his name in Netflix and it brought up dozens of comedians, but nothing more recent than 2015 for him in particular. Any tips on what it is actually called so I can try again?

edit: never mind. I just googled his name and netflix and it came up with kid gorgeous. Will watch it later.

@TenguPhule: The Norwegians dealt with their fascists in 1945. They lived it.

On another note, I want to reiterate that I side with the people who don’t look for the cloud around every silver lining. I get that some of you are scared of what may happen. I am too. Jebus, who wouldn’t be? If you purely focus on the negative, you will only see that. And the lurkers who read what we write will only see the negative. Fuck if I know if our comments influence them, but, as a former soldier, predicting disaster does fuck all for morale.

@Omnes Omnibus: Thank you. Agree with you. Deer in the headlights is not a good look here.

Don’t demoralize those who are hanging on by you know not how slender a thread of hope.

Mueller and DOJ and a lot of the dreaded government bureaucrats are way smarter than Trump and his hooligans; we have helpers in the shadows we do not see.

Further, I’d guess the Supreme Court reads its share of history. They may get some crucial cases before them; history will be watching them, too. Not everyone is as awful a nihilist and Trump and his core cronies.

@Cheryl Rofer: There was “tremendous pressure” on Trumpov simply because…Comey wouldn’t tell him he wasn’t a target of the investigation? And so Trumpov had no other way, no other tools in the toolbox, no other arms in the arsenal…except to fire Comey? And then go on live TV and admit he did it because Comey wouldn’t end the investigation?

There’s a squadron of C-130s based here in CRW, we see them flying often to keep everyone’s hours in the air up for payroll purposes, and to have an active log-book. They do touch-and-goes when there isn’t a commercial flight active coming in or heading out.

CRW airport is three mountain tops pushed into the valley between them to create a large flat spot. But it’s still a mountain top, and so is more like a carrier landing than most airports. Except holding still, as opposed to bobbing up and down and trying to hold a steady course in a running sea.

Pilots need to be very familiar with it to land here in the dark or in stormy weather.

That crash in Savannah, that was pretty bad, like a load shifted or something, then straight down. Like that big cargo plane that crashed on takeoff in Afganistan some time back… when the cargo slid back, causing a stall that wasn’t recoverable.

@Elizabelle: Cynicism and learned helplessness are powerful drugs. Lots of people are good and decent. Let’s get them to the polls. In states like mine, let’s help people get the ID that they need. We can have a wave this November if we work for it.

@Cheryl Rofer:
That baffles me. Giuliani was a top federal prosecutor — per Wikipedia, he was US Attorney for SDNY. My education in American criminal law came via a TV set, and even I know that there is not a right to know if one is being investigated; that a prosecutor may well have good reason in a particular situation not to tell a person that.

@J R in WV: when I was in grad school, one of my committee members showed me the letter he received from the Nobel Prize committee, asking him to recommend a collaborator who was obviously on the NP- Physics short list. It was really cool, and the stationery was incredible. The process: solemn, serious. Yay science! I know that the science prizes are not awarded in the same process as the Peace Prizes…but there is a real depth of purpose there. The repulsive preznit does. not. stand. a. chance.

Keaton is having one of those days where he pukes on everything, but is otherwise fine. Annie is our kitty who had to get the lion cut because her coat got really matted when her pemphigus flared up. She’s feeling pretty good, except that the third cat (Charlotte) keeps trying to corner her and hiss at her. I think Charlotte is going to have to be locked back up in the bedroom until G gets home from work and can help me supervise them.